Warm Up Your Fall Email Marketing

October 14th, 2019

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There’s something about fall that feels new to me—like, New Year’s new. Maybe it’s the falling temperatures and the changing leaf color that seems to bring renewed energy into my plans and aspirations. Some of those plans are personal, some of them are work related—like freshening up fall email marketing campaigns for SHERPA clients.

You likely have email campaigns running, and maybe some of them have been running for a while. With this new season, let’s think about warming up your emails. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Weekly Summary of Posts or Offers

If you’re in ecommerce, you likely have a few email campaigns planned that will offer various discounts over the next few months. If you are running several promotions simultaneously, incorporate a weekly email that provides a listing of promotions each week. Along with the individual emails for each offer, this listing of offers provides a way for consumers to see what offers they want to take advantage. Or, they may see an offer that they missed during the week.

If you’re a service provider with a company blog, send a weekly email that shares three or four blog article summaries with associated links to products or special offers.

With the holiday onslaught of emails we receive, having weekly summaries is one way to get your information in front of customers a second or third time.

Update for Fall Email Marketing Design

Think about the freshness of fall—the nip in the air, the gold, red, yellow, and orange of the trees as they change color—and then turn your eye to your email design. Does it need a refresh?

What elements can you remove to keep a clean and simple layout to your email template? Do colors need to be updated or removed to achieve an open, fresh approach to your information? Do you need to add an element or two—images, graphics, or additional information about your company?

Once you’ve reviewed your design and made any changes, go back and make sure that share buttons are added where applicable. Create a call-to-action around forwarding the email to friends. Ask readers to share the featured articles or products within the email.

If your email list is accustomed to receiving one blog article and one offer in your email, experiment with adding two or three short summaries with links to the articles on your site. Or add a section at the bottom of your email with “related reading” items. This is a way to point readers to more pages on your website.

Add Value with Helpful Seasonal Tips

Depending on your industry, it could be advantageous for you to include short tips in your emails that relate to the season, holiday shopping, entertaining, home winterizing, energy efficiency, travel, etc. Think about your industry and what people might be looking for—things other than what you offer, but along the same lines—and offer helpful tips. For example, if you’re an HVAC provider, sharing a tip about winterizing your home offers value to your readers.

Personally Promote Holiday Specials

Of course, promote holiday specials. Get creative and think about action words and personalization that will nurture a relationship between you and your customer. Add personal names to emails. Use casual language in your copy to make it sound like you’re talking to a friend. Speak to the needs of your readers and customers, and ask them to take action.

Tie-in Email Marketing to Real Holidays and Imagined Holidays

In my opinion, there are “real” holidays and there are imagined holidays. Real holidays usually involve bank or post office closings—these are federal holidays. Then, there are the imagined holidays. Some of my favorites are World Nutella Day (February 5) and National Dog Day (August 26)—I celebrate them both enthusiastically.

Perform a Google search and look for holidays in October, November, and December that align with your industry or with some of your products, and join in the fun with your email campaign.

There are national holidays for everything—funny and serious—from National Caramel Apple Day (October 31) to National Clean Out Your Fridge Day (November 15) to National Wreaths Across America Day (December 21). There is likely one or two national holidays this fall that align with your company’s values, like honoring veterans or giving back on Giving Tuesday (December 3). Or holidays that align with your products, like National Mutt Day (December 2)—if you sell pet products. Whatever your industry, there is a national holiday you can tie-in with and have fun!

Now that you have some idea of how you can freshen up your fall email marketing campaigns, which one will you implement? What ideas do you have?

At SHERPA, we provide helpful guidance for email marketing, social media marketing, paid search, Web design, and so much more. Contact SHERPA and let us know how we can help you meet your digital marketing goals this fall and into 2020!